A/N: I'm back!!! Oh, I've missed my little laptop so much…!! I hope you've had a nice holidays. I got so many nice presents but the nicest one was my sister coming from Barcelona with her husband to spend new year's with us…We had such a great party…It made me very happy to spend some time with her after so long without seeing each other (almost six months!).

Anyway, I'm sorry for not having updated for so long! I hope you're still interested in my story…for those of you who are, there you have the next chapter:

Chapter Seventeen

Everyone in the shipper was silent. No one knew what to say or do. This was way beyond what everyone had expected, since Dr van der Veert had used the gundam's frequency, everyone had been able to witness his conversation with Heero.

Quatre looked at Trowa, the blond man could almost feel his best friend's feeling of gilt.

"Trowa…" Quatre started saying, breaking the silence.

"I shot him! I shot him and I saw his body falling to the ground. He was dead!" shouted Trowa interrupting whatever Quatre was going to say.

"You're not more guilty than we are, we all thought he was dead…" said Wufei.

"Yeah…don't forget it was my responsibility to clear everything up, I was the one giving the order to stop looking for him…" added Milliardo.

"This is not time nor the place to decide who's responsible for what. We have to find Relena, and soon…" said Sally.

"You're right Sally…We should try to land this thing now that the mobile dolls have stopped" said Quatre resolutely.

Trowa directed his attention to the shipper's controls. He had almost made it to the satellite's surface when the mobile dolls started attacking again.

Meanwhile, Heero was just too upset to focus. Everything was blurry around him. He just did not see how they would get through this. Before disappearing from Zero's screen, Dr van der Veert had warned him that they would never find Relena.

Heero had never felt more frustrated in his life. He just could not think straight anymore. His brain was collapsing with the overload of information. There were too many different feelings to process. Frustration, anger, desperation, confusion, fear…too many for someone still not used to them. Above all of those feelings, there was the deep love he felt for his wife. He couldn't bear the fact of losing her. It was too much for him to handle.

'NO! IF I HAVE TO LOSE HER I WILL GO DOWN WITH HER!' Heero thought and, in one last, desperate attempt, started overloading his twin beam cannon. If he could not get Relena back, he would blow up the entire satellite and himself in the process.

Duo, seeing his friend's intentions, placed his gundam in front of Zero and, opening their communication channel, said:

"Hey, Heero! We've got to fight those things not destroy the entire universe…" .

"Get out of my way!" shouted Heero in reply.

"Man…this is not going to fix anything…Heero, we need you now…Relena's somewhere inside there, we will find her, I promise…but we need to focus now..." said Duo now abandoning his humorous tone of voice to replace it with his most serious one.

"You don't understand…if she dies…I won't care anymore…" replied Heero.

"Precisely, I understand you very well, that's why we have to do whatever it takes to get her back…Heero...please…you're with me, aren't you?" asked Duo truly understanding his friend's emotions for he would have done the same if anything happened to his Hilde.

After a very short silence, Heero turned off Zero's cannon and, without replying, turned around and started fighting off the mobile suits that were preventing Trowa from landing the shipper.

Duo, happy to see that Heero was indeed with him, followed him while desperately trying to get rid of the mobile suits that were now attacking him.

Finally the shipper had touched down. Sally went to fetch her medical bag while everyone was getting in their space suits and getting their weapons. Each of them had two rifles. One armed with sleeping darts, the other with actual ammunition. Sally, as the highest ranked preventer present, ordered everyone to use the latter exclusively in case of a desperate situation.

Trowa opened the shipper's main entrance so everyone would be able to leave. Duo's gundam was covering the so they would make it to an entry that Quatre had seen earlier and they could leave the shipper's shields off so the two gundams could get back inside the carrier.

Duo, as soon as he had made sure that all five of them had made it to safety, said:

"Heero, you better store that gundam of yours and follow them inside. I will stay here and will try to join you as soon as possible".

"Duo..." started saying Heero.

"Don't thank me...I already know how nice I am…" replied Duo jokingly.

Soon, Heero had made it to the gate where he found Trowa forcing his way in. Unblocking the door was not too difficult, the problem was that, as soon as they had opened the door, they found themselves in front of two corridors. They both looked exactly the same.

"Alright, we have to separate. Milliardo, you go with Heero and Wufei. Honey, please, keep an eye on those two and take care they don't kill each other" said Sally ignoring the two men's glares, then added, "I'll go with Trowa and Quatre, whoever finds Relena first will inform everyone and will take her to the shuttle…understood?".

"Where do I go?" enquired Duo joining them.

"Have you stored your gundam and turned the shipper's shields back on?" asked Wufei.

"Of course, who do you think I am?" said Duo offended.

"You better go with them…" interrupted Sally and, not wanting to waste time with useless arguments, started to walk along the corridor on their left.

Heero copied her taking the right one. After walking for quite a while Heero started getting even more nervous. Milliardo was also very tense and Wufei…well, with him you could never know. Duo had the urge to tell a joke or something else just for the sake of breaking the tension up but, giving it a second thought, Duo realised that none of his three companions would appreciate it so he chose to stay quiet. After all, there were less painful ways to kill oneself…

The walked for a long time following all the bends and climbing up and down all of them mapping the way so they could find where they had come from.

Suddenly, Heero stopped and put his left index finger on his lips asking everyone not to make any noise. Then moved the finger and pointed at something with it.

The others heard it too. There was some kind of noise coming from above them. Air. It was an air duct. Taking a few steps, Heero saw a small entry leading to it over his head.

Milliardo, Wufei and Duo understood what Heero was trying to do. If there was an air duct, there was at least a part of the satellite that had been conditioned for people to live in and, that surely meant that, if they followed the air duct, they would reach it.

Milliardo and Wufei helped Heero up so he could unscrew the cover so he could get in it. Duo kept guard in case they were attacked. The braided man was not the only one to feel uneasy about the fact that they had not been attacked yet.

Meanwhile, Sally, Trowa and Quatre had not been that lucky. They had already knocked out a few guards. They had found a computer port and Trowa had already connected his palm held computer to it and was trying to hack in the mainframe in order to get any useful information.

"I've got it. I've found where the mainframe is, I've also downloaded the satellite's map so we just have to follow it…" announced Trowa.

"Great. Relena should be somewhere near there…" said Quatre hopeful.

"Let's go…you lead the way Trowa" said Sally getting inpatient.

"Sure thing…" replied Trowa starting to walk.

"Duo here…what's up?" asked Duo hearing his radio beep.

"This is Quatre, we've found the main computer. We're heading towards it as we speak. Trowa is sending you the map he's downloaded to your computer…Shall we meet there?" asked the Arabian man.

"No…It's better if we surprise them. They will be too busy with you guys…They won't expect us to come out from the air duct Heero's just found…" said Duo.

"Ok then…please confirm the reception of the map and…good luck" replied Quatre at the other end.

"Same to you old friend…same to you…over" said Duo closing the communication.

The braided man told everyone about the other group's discovery and about his plan.

"I think it's a good idea Duo, but I think it would be even better if we split up, I'll go with Heero through the air duct and you two could follow the corridor, this way we will have a three way attack..." proposed Milliardo getting a shocked look from everyone, he was actually volunteering to go with Heero!

"Fair enough…Let's go Duo" replied Wufei not waiting for an answer starting to walk.

Duo started following him not having any other option while Milliardo and Heero climbed to get inside the air duct.

After a while, Duo was getting tired of following Wufei like a puppy when both men stopped suddenly.

There were two guards in front of a door. Wufei turned around briefly to look at Duo and, after seeing that the American man had understood his intentions.

Extracting their rifles, the ones with the sleeping darts, they aimed at the guards' necks and, with a precise shot, knocked out both of them.

Relena heard some noises coming from outside the room that had held her prisoner since she had been kidnapped.

She walked towards it and tried, for the umpteenth time, to force it open. Not even with the basic tricks that Heero had taught her, she still couldn't get the damned thing open. This time though, for her immense surprise, the door actually opened.

"Duo! What are you doing here?" asked Relena not believing her eyes.

"Rescuing you princess…" replied Duo with a huge grin seeing that, not only Relena was relatively ok but, she was also still very obviously pregnant.

"Let's go…you've got to get her to the shipper…" intervened Wufei.

"Sure…can you walk?" asked Duo looking at Relena.

"I think so…" replied Relena not sounding as sure as she wanted to.

"Alright, Duo, take her to the shipper, I will follow alone so I get to the guys…" said Wufei.

Duo, passing his arm around Relena's waist so she could support herself on him, was about to start walking her to the carrier when, suddenly, Relena's knees seemed to give way at the same time that the girl let out a scream.

"What's wrong?" asked Duo concerned.

"Can't you see idiot? She's having contractions…" replied Wufei matter-of-factly.

"I'm sorry guys…" said Relena with a very small voice when it seemed that the contraction was almost over, then she added with an even weaker voice "I think my water's just broke…".

END OF CHAPTER SEVENTEEN